Didnīt play there.He had reached the semis in 83, losing to Wilander and would play in 85, when bobo osued him after a contoversial match.

The relatively big surprise of the 84 AO was Lendl being ousted by Curren in the fourth round ( I wonder how Curren was seeded so low so to meet Lendl very early).Of course, losing to Curren on grass, even if you are Lendl, is not such of a big surprise, as we all know.

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Whenever I walk in a London street, I am always so careful where I put my feet

He lost in 5 finals that year to an unstoppable McEnroe, plus the Rotterdam final against Connors which he was leading 6-0 1-0 was cancelled due to a bomb scare (it was Lendl who requested that the final be cancelled and not Connors incidentally).

Still I'm sure he would have taken winning significantly less titles but finally winning a major and one of the 'big three' titles.

McEnroe has talked about receiving appearance money to play at the Australian Open, but didn't specify the year. Certainly the tournament organisers there were desperately to get such a global superstar to play at their event.

It wouldn't surprise me if he only showed up there in 1983 due to that appearance money. USA not reaching the Davis Cup final in 1983 would also have been a likely factor.

McEnroe has talked about receiving appearance money to play at the Australian Open, but didn't specify the year. Certainly the tournament organisers there were desperately to get such a global superstar to play at their event.

It wouldn't surprise me if he only showed up there in 1983 due to that appearance money. USA not reaching the Davis Cup final in 1983 would also have been a likely factor.

This could have happened but I donīt think in 84.mac had won everything on sight and the only big events he did not win, the French and DC finals, he went into the last match...IMO, he would have played the Australian so to round up his best ever year.Maybe he was burnt out, yet he won the Masters in Jan 85, so...

(BTW, does anybody remember the Jan 85 Masters final? I donīt think anybody can play better indoor tennis than him during that final)

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Whenever I walk in a London street, I am always so careful where I put my feet

John McEnroe in 1984 won 13 of 15 tournaments with an still Open Era record percentage of 82-3. He won 65.32% of his games for the entire years. The Games Won percentage is staggeringly great. If you have a one percentage higher Games Won percentage that is a big deal over the course of a year. To put it in perspective in Federer's best year for GW percentage he was in the 61% range.

McEnroe won two of three majors entered and was in the final of the other. Arguably the best year of the Open Era with a few other players.

I heard him say on TV that if he had won the French and had a chance to win the Grand Slam that year he would have gone to Australia. Since that wasn't such an important tournament and he couldn't win the GS, he decided to stay home for Christmas [a break around the holidays, I guess].
Edited because of subsequent posts - thanks guys.

The courts and facility were horrible at Kooyong and the writing was on the wall that it was well past the time to leave the facility. Along with the schedule changes and lack of prestige as stated before was a huge reason many didn't make the trip down.

I think 1983 was the best Australian Open since 1971 in terms of prestige. The Australian Open certainly started to improve in prestige from 1983 onwards with the new slot of late November-early December settling in, and then the move to the present January slot in 1987. In 1988, we had the increase to 128 players in the draw, and the move to Flinders Park, which improved prestige most of all.